CNA plans birthday surprise for patient

Through months in the ICU, a patient with special needs found comfort in Batman: His blanket, pillow, T-shirt, DVDs – everything featured the Caped Crusader.

“It was kind of a way to distract him from his treatments,” said Romy Ruelas, certified nursing assistant at the surgical ICU at UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies. “Batman was kind of his way of pausing what was happening to him.”

When it was clear the patient would be spending his birthday at the hospital, Ruelas knew what would make his day. She created flyers and delivered them via the pneumatic tube system, seeking Batman.

“I thought, there’s got to be someone who’s been Batman for Halloween,” she said. “I’m only 5-foot-3, there’s no way that I could be Batman.”

One of those fliers landed on the medical unit, where Sarah Patrick was a nurse educator and Nick French is a CNA. Patrick called some party stores and found Life of the Party in Fort Collins, which rented a realistic Batman costume for free. French, “who was the perfect person to act as Batman,” agreed to wear it, said Patrick, now a staff nurse on the ortho-neuro-spine unit.

Ruelas purchased Batman gear: sunglasses that looked like a Batman mask, balloons, a Batman poster, a new pillow case and black gauntlets with the signature fins.

By his birthday, the patient had recovered enough to leave the ICU but remained at the hospital. A family member took him in a wheelchair outside while the staff prepared his room for the surprise; when they returned, what she saw caused her to start crying. They sang to the patient and gave him the gifts.

“I always try to pay attention to the little details,” said Ruelas, who came in on her day off for the birthday surprise. “My mom was hospitalized, and I lost her, so I know what it’s like to be on the other side.”

Ruelas recently earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemical sciences and aspires to be physician assistant. Meanwhile, she said, her work gives her an incredible opportunity to support patients in their recovery.

And she didn’t need the Bat Signal to find heroes – just a pneumatic tube.

“It took a lot of people, but I knew we were going to be able to do it,” Ruelas said. “Because I work in a place where we all work together to make things better.”